Petunia Autopsy

I took petunia cuttings Oct. 24 and Nov. 11 and have been caring for them in the garage ever since. There was no indication that they were quickly dying, and some of them put out flowers. But they were not thriving. I took one more cutting Nov. 15, this time using rooting hormone. Over the past month, this one seemed to surpass the others, with greener leaves and a bloom. After a few weeks, roots were visible in the semi-transparent plastic cup, unlike the other cuttings.

Today I decided to take a look at one of the original cuttings to see if it had rooted. No, it had not. There is still some green in the leaves and stem, but this cutting never sent out roots.

That decided the fate of the other seven cuttings that had not been treated with the rooting hormone. They were discarded to make room for a larger pot for the treated cutting. This shows the original petunia pot (#1), which has bushed out several inches since it got a haircut a month ago, and the rooted cutting (#2) in its new pot.

This new pot will live in the heated garage for the winter, but I did plant something in the unheated greenhouse today. I ordered a cheap mini-greenhouse (27.5x19x63 inches) to reside inside the big greenhouse to provide an even more sheltered environment for seed starting in the spring. I tested some arugula seeds for viability on Nov. 15, and to my surprise some of them sprouted within three days. I didn't know what to do with them, so today I planted them in a tray and put them on a heat mat inside the mini-greenhouse. I'm interested in seeing how much (if any) the heat mat raises the temperature inside the mini. My concern is that on a sunny winter day, the mini will heat up even more than the greenhouse and fry whatever is inside. The fan has kicked in several times the past week. The greenhouse temperature reached 87 on Dec. 15 when the outside temperature was 61. Yes, December 15th.

I left the watering can inside the mini, theorizing that it may help with humidity and heat retention. The front flap rolls down, sealing the heat and humidity inside and keeping any pests outside. That's the plan anyway. I put the arugula on a low shelf only because the heat mat cord isn't very long.

Update Dec. 20: It got down to 21 degrees inside the greenhouse last night, and 26 on the thermometer in the mini. The arugula is right on the heat mat and the thermometer is a foot above it, so the arugula didn't get frosted. We'll see what happens if it gets really cold. All of the water in the tray disappeared, so with the heat underneath it I'll probably have to fill that every few days. I also looked at the other seven petunia cuttings on which I did not use rooting hormone. None of them rooted. Without hormone: 0-for-8. With hormone: 1-for-1.

I picked a few carrots (which look good) and beets (which do not).

And finally, we have a broccoli head. It's only about an inch across, but it is there. The coldest it has gotten inside the greenhouse was 16 on Dec. 1 (outside -1). This plant is not exploding with growth, but it is slowly plugging away. I'm guessing if we get a week of sub-zero, that will put an end to it.

Mint

I've been told umpteen times mint will take over so it needs to be planted in a pot. I've sprouted some mint and potted up a few. This is the most robust one and it is already sending out runners.

Real Shutdown Day

Although my "official" greenhouse heater shutdown day was Nov. 18, I kept the thermostat on at 25 degrees to squeeze a few more days out of the peas, carrots, beets and broccoli. It worked for the first three, but as of today there were still no broccoli heads. And all four were impacted by a freeze the last two nights, with the inside temperature getting down to 23 at the thermostat, and probably colder next to the windows. I whacked down the peas and salvaged what I could. I also tried to salvage some cilantro, but it was too far gone. The carrots and beets will be preserved in the soil, but it was too frozen today to pick any.

I unplugged the heater for good, and that's probably it for the greenhouse (except some carrot and beet salvage efforts) until April. The fan is turned off, but its thermostat is still on so I will be able to monitor inside conditions. I also have trail cameras inside and outside, and they also record the temperature when they take images.

Attention moves to the heated garage where I have been potting the parsley, rosemary and mint the past few days, getting multiples of each. Only one thyme sprout made it through to this stage. Some of the petunia and geranium cuttings look good, some do not. I don't have anywhere to put the arugula sprouts, but at least I now know I can use that seed packet in the spring when the soil in the greenhouse thaws out. Along with what I call house plants (aloe, Cuban oregano, basil and oregano) I don't have room for anything else.

Shutdown Day

Today is the offical shutdown day for the greenhouse, but as I mentioned in the previous post that doesn't mean nothing will happen in the next few weeks. I'm going to be gone the next five days so I watered everything thoroughly today. When I come back, there should be plenty of snow peas, carrots and cilantro for an Asian stir fry. I will pull a few beets to see if we can smoke them. And I hope to see something from the broccoli. It isn't supposed to snow until after I get back, so we've done pretty well avoiding an early winter.

Meanwhile, in the seed room, some of the old arugula seeds have sprouted. That took only three days. I probably planted them too thickly, but they are at least 3-4 years old so I thought it would be a miracle if anything came up.

A few final (not final) snapshots:

Cilantro, one mum buried under straw, sage, the other mum (behind the camera) still hasn't gotten its haircut.

The carrots and beets still have impressive foliage.

Outside.

The snow peas picked up the pace the last few weeks.

Lingering, as always.

Transition

I started wrapping things up at the greenhouse today, relocating all the cold-sensitive pots to the garage closet at our house. I have learned from YouTube that the 20 degree mark seems to be the sweet spot (literally) for beets and carrots. They need a bit of a frost to bring out the sweetness. I turned the heater down from 42 today, but only went to 25 because I'm not sure whether some of the other plants can handle 20. It may not make any difference because the forecast lows for the next eight days are right around 32. After that "warm" snap is over, I will decide whether to take the plunge to 20 or just shut off the heater for the season.

The beets have some aphids, so I am spraying the leaves with the soap and have the yellow flypaper deployed. The plants are still healthy, but the greens are going into the compost bin when the time comes. The flypaper gets a lot of bugs, but doesn't get them all. (And the flypaper is a bit disgusting when it gets loaded with dead insects.) The carrots don't have any pests, knock knock.

Besides the beets and carrots, what remains in the greenhouse are a good stand of snow peas, a still-robust cilantro patch mixed with garlic, some extremely sickly-looking radishes, good-looking sage, three chive pots, and leafy broccoli (no heads). The broccoli inherited some aphids from the tomatillo monstrosity, but the soap and some thinning seems to have stopped them on that front.

And there's also two buried mum pots. One of them was looking ready to hibernate, so I chopped off half of the foliage and covered it with straw. I took the temperature of the soil inside the pot when I put it to bed. It registered 51 degrees, and if there are no huge snowdrifts in January I will measure it again then. The other mum is still threatening to bloom, so I will wait about 10 days before doing the same to it. (There's also five allium bulbs that have been buried for several months and won't reveal whether they are alive until spring.)

The plants that were transported included the petunia, six petunia cuttings, the geranium, two basil, and the volunteer marigold. I gave the petunia a 50% haircut and cut the blooms off the geranium before moving them. The petunia cuttings I've done so far are still alive, but don't seem to be thriving. I got some rooting hormone, and used it on the last cutting I did yesterday. The interweb seems to be divided on whether rooting hormone actually works, but if nothing else I'm doing a dry run for next spring when I really do want to get cuttings to thrive.

I have three grow lights going in the closet, the original one hanging in the middle, and two new ones on a stalk. The single is very bright, the double much less so. I've got those two shining within inches of the geranium and petunia. Those are in the big pots at right in this image. On the left are the basil, Cuban oregano, aloe, and the little marigold. The covered seed starter in the middle was planted yesterday with arugula. They were old seeds, so I might get nothing, but they are on the heat mat so I'm giving them the best chance I can. To the right of that are the geranium and petunia cuttings, and the sprouts of mint, parsley, rosemary and thyme.

Update Dec. 17: Most of the petunia cuttings have yellowish leaves, haven't grown much, and roots are not evident. The one treated with rooting hormone is green, has doubled in size, roots are very evident in the semi-transparent plastic cup, and it is producing flowers (which I prune). I think we have a winner. I should dispose of the losers to make room for a larger pot containing the winner. The original petunia pot, which I believe contains three plants from last spring, is still sitting under a grow light and is a lot more bushy than shown at right in the above image. I have pruned a couple of flowers off it it, but not many. So yes, it does seem to be possible to overwinter a pentunia and propogate with cuttings, and it probably would work even better if I had a better space to put them.

As sometimes happens when I'm puttering around the greenhouse, a flock of turkeys came through the adjacent field. I counted 24, I think the most I've ever seen here. They are town turkeys so weren't disturbed by my presence as I went about my business.

Other visitors caught on trail camera in recent days.

Grow lights

The grow lights for the petunia and geranium have arrived. I set them up in the greenhouse, but their home this winter will be in the garage. The Amazon reviews often mention that these are easy to tip over, but I will not be extending them any higher than this. The lighting timer is not real flexible (3, 6 or 12 hours every day ONLY), but I'll probably just set it on 12 hours and see if that works. The lights are not extremely bright, definitely not as bright as the other grow light I have. The light meter measured it as equal to indirect daytime lighting.

The brand name is LBW, as if that means anything. The instruction sheet that comes with it obviously was written by someone unfamiliar with English grammar. My greenhouse project no doubt has contributed a great deal to the Chinese economy in the second half of 2025.

Brackets

I have a plan for hanging baskets at the greenhouse and the house next year. Today I hung the brackets on the outside ends of the greenhouse.

I got four brackets for the house from Amazon about five years ago. For consistency, I ordered eight more of the same, or so I thought. The hooks look the same, but the mounting plate is different. It is narrower and the screw holes are in different locations. I might have to swap brackets in the back of the house (two old for four new), which is a minor annoyance.

I figured the bracket screws needed to go into thick beams if possible. I used a long screw in the top hole on each bracket, but had to use a short screw at the bottom to keep from punching through the wall. The position of the beams, fan and a window dictated where the brackets went. On the east side, I wanted to make sure the baskets would be clear of the fan. On the west side, the high window is rather wide. The brackets are not in exactly the same position on the two walls, but close enough. I didn't measure, but those on the west side are slightly further apart due to the wide window.

I thought the west brackets were a lot lower than the east, but the tape measure says they are almost the same to within an inch. The rim of the baskets will be 70-71 inches off the ground. That will keep the deer from getting to the petunias, peas and cucumbers until the vegetation hangs over the edge by a foot or so. I might shorten the chains a couple links, not just to pick up an inch or so of altitude on the deer, but to get them to clear the swinging lower windows. They are bumping on the west side for sure.

East side, baskets clear the windows and the fan.

West side, baskets don't quite clear the windows.

Resident deer

Winding Down

It is ten days before the heater shutdown, but the greenhouse is already pretty much ready for hibernation. Not much remains to be dug up, and only a few more plants have to be evacuated to the garage. Here's the complete list, clockwise from the far left corner.

• Snow Peas: There are enough pods to have one good stir fry sometime next week, and we'll see if they keep producing when the heat goes off.
• Sorrel: Not one of my favorites so I wished it into the cornfield. (See the original Twilight Zone, "It's a Good Life.") Actually we don't have a cornfield, but there is a field where it ended up because it was too big for the compost bin. Its former spot below the fan is now occupied by a straw bale which I will be using for mulch.
• Late-planted radishes: Some look OK, some do not.
• Carrots: They aren't going to be huge, but we will get some. A few will be allowed to overwinter so they can produce flowers and seeds next year.

• Chives: I trimmed the two large pots and will leave them on the ground at far right for the winter. There is an untrimmed pot on the bench at left that might end up in a garage window. I also stuck some dried chive heads in one of the outside window boxes and maybe they will sprout in the spring. The plan is to have the chives share the box with mint. We will see who wins.
• Beets: Maybe we will get some of edible size. Maybe. The greens are lush and I've used them in omelets a few times in place of spinach.
• Geraniums: After getting haircuts, the three baskets went to their winter home. I have one pot that will overwinter in the garage seed room.
• Cilantro: Still a lot to harvest from the planter, and those plants are not going to seed. The crop in the pot bolted a long time ago and is dried out, but there are very few seeds. I still have plenty of seeds from previous years.
• Mums: I followed through on my plan to bury both pots in the planters. I took the soil temperature next to one of the pots and it was 52 degrees. It will be interesting to see what it is in January (if the greenhouse isn't drifted shut). One buried pot can be seen in the middle of the right planter, and the other is directly below the camera. I will trim the foliage and cover them with straw about a week after turning off the heat.
• Allium: Unseen, hopefully establishing roots. I have scattered some straw as mulch.
• Basil: Two plants remain in the dirt. I will trim off the last of the good branches and compost them before shutdown day.
• Sage: Both survived after almost being smothered by the tomatillo. They take up a bit of room themselves, and I think next spring (assuming they survive the winter) I will leave one where it is and put the other one in a pot.
• Tomatillo: I wished it into the cornfield. See previous post.
• Broccoli: Tall and not producing heads. They have a bit more space now because I thinned them and killed the tomatillo, but I wonder if it is too late.
• Petunia: Still in the greenhouse a few more days until I get additional grow lights for the seed room. I'll give it a trim and try to root some of the cuttings.
• Marigold: I have that little volunteer marigold plant that I dug out of the geranium pot. It will end up in the garage somewhere.

I finally got around to placing trail cameras, one outside looking toward the door, and one inside sitting on a little pot in the lower center of the above image. I'm sure deer and turkeys will show up on the outside one, and moose and bear also have been known to frequent the neighborhood.

The seed room in the garage is getting crowded, and it will have to make room for just a few more items. I'll probably do four more petunia cuttings, and maybe the volunteer marigold will get to spend some time in there. The crunch will come March and April when I will have to find room for dozens of seed starts. This image shows some Cuban oregano and aloe on the sides, seed starters in the back with parsley, mint, rosemary and thyme, and the geranium and petunia cuttings at right. Eight of the 12 cells I seeded with mint now have sprouts, so I took the cover off and turned off the heat mat. I set up a cheap fan in the middle just to keep the air moving. The garage is currently heated to 55, but this time of year will get warmer than that during the day. My latest check of the room was 61 degrees but humidity only 22%. That's what happens when you live in the West at altitude (5,800 feet). We have a humidifier attached to our furnace that keeps humidity at 35% inside the house, but the garage has its own Hot Dog heater which doesn't have a humidifier. The new grow lights will be on the floor to the right, and the petunia and geranium pots will have their winter home there.

Not pictured are the plants in the garage windows and inside the house. These include three basil, several Cuban oregano, several aloe, an oregano, and a Christmas cactus. The two small garage windows are my only southern exposure. If I had to design the house all over again, we would have an attached greenhouse on the south side of the house. Oh well.

I doubt anyone will ever read these blog posts. They are for my benefit. I can go back and read them and plan for the future. If someone finds them useful, great.

Harvest

Yesterday I was looking at the crumbling tomatillo and saw that it had a lot of aphids, so today was the day to harvest. I figured it was a bad idea to put bug-infested tomatillo pieces in the compost bin, so it was secured in a garbage bag and deposited in the dumpster. This was the harvest:

These are the last tomatillos you will ever see raised in a greenhouse I control. The plant was too big for the space, blotted out the sun for nearby plants, is a magnet for aphids, and the sticky fruits are a pain to harvest. After I had it all out of the greenhouse, I sprayed everything nearby with insecticidal soap to take care of any stray aphids, and I even washed my jacket when I got home. I will raise some tomatoes next year, but smaller plants than this monstrosity. Also put out to pasture today were the sorrel, about half of the broccoli plants, and one of the basil. Next (after the new growlights show up next week) is transporting houseplants, the geranium and the petunia to the garage. I'm slowly getting everything whipped into shape for winter.

I was reading about carrots in one of my garden books, and was reminded that carrots are biennials. It is easy to forget that because most carrots are harvested for eating during Year 1. They become woody and inedible by Year 2, but have interesting flowers which eventually produce seed. So I'm going to leave a couple small strips of carrots in the planters over the winter and see what happens.

Tunias

When I was a youth, my Dad would get me jobs watering flowers at local motels in Rapid City, SD. Usually the flowers were petunias, so petunias and I go way back. I have lots of things to try in my first full season in the greenhouse, but I may be most eager to see what can be done with humble petunias.

But petunias are not so humble any more. Supertunias, supercharged mutants developed by Proven Winners in Michigan, are the most amazing petunias ever. (They prefer "hybrid" to "mutant.") I want to do six 16-inch baskets next year. They will spend the first six weeks or so in the greenhouse getting fat, then will be released into the wild sometime in June. I'll probably hang two on the outside west wall of the greenhouse, and four at our house. Three different colors in a 16-inch basket could be spectacular. But the list price is $10.99 per plant. I may buy three or four plants and do some mix-and-match cuttings.

The past few years I've attempted hanging flower baskets in our back yard, but really had no method. In retrospect, the baskets were too small (12") and the petunias were just the cheapest ones I could find.

When the greenhouse arrived in late July, the petunias and marigolds in the baskets looked sick, but they were still alive. I put the deer-resistant marigolds in the outside flower boxes, where the deer eventually killed them. The petunias went into a large pot inside the greenhouse and were neglected for the next few months. In my subsequent research, it said to fertilize petunias heavily, so eventually I did. Now, with my self-imposed greenhouse heating shutoff date of Nov. 18, they look great and I don't want to abandon them to the cold. I plan on trimming them about halfway and putting them in my seed room under a grow light which is on order and supposed to arrive Nov. 10.

There are lots of Supertunia videos on YouTube, including this one by "Up North Garden w/Corey."

Geraniums

The weather has been surprisingly mild this autumn in the foothills of southern Montana. But inevitably, temperatures are dropping and now we're at highs of about 50 and lows a few degrees either side of freezing. The geranium baskets got a haircut today before heading to their winter quarters in my brother's nearby tunnel greenhouse. This isn't exactly what the interweb says to do to overwinter geraniums, but the local experts say they will be fine.

Ever the optimist, I fertilized the pot of petunias today. They look great. But I have to decide what to do with them and with the pot (non-basket) of geraniums. I have taken cuttings from both, but I also plan to overwinter both pots in the windowless garage closet that I call the seed room. The garage is currently heated to 55 and it might be 60 in the seed room. I'll give both pots a haircut, but not as severe as what I gave the baskets. Currently there is one grow light hanging from the ceiling, shining on a crowded seeding area. I will put the two pots, plus maybe a few houseplants that can't find a for home elsewhere, on the floor, in a spot that currently doesn't get much light. I have ordered a stand which has two grow lights. Nov. 10, Amazon says. I know Bezos doesn't run Amazon any more, but sometimes I feel like my wife and I have paid for his wedding, her with her craft stuff and me with my newfound greenhouse obsession.

I was finally able to sprout mint in the seed room by using a seed starter tray and a heat mat. I hope to get at least six mint plants, which I figure is what I will need next summer, and so far there are six sprouts in the 12 cells.

The current grow light intensity is adjustable, but I wasn't sure what to set it at. I was afraid of zapping the delicate seedlings with too much light, and with the light fairly close to the plants I only had it at about 25%. Using one of my new gadgets, the 7-in-1 testing meter, today I compared the light in the seed room to what the natural light was in the greenhouse today. The natural light was not intense today because it was cloudy, but it was still much brighter than the light in the seed room. So I cranked the light up to 60%. We'll see if that helps, or if the seedlings will be charred husks tomorrow.

One final discouraging note. The tomatillo looks like it is getting ready to die, and is caving in on itself. I really don't care if we get a single tomatillo. The real problem is it has aphids, and some of them seem to have found the broccoli. We will see how the soap works. I've been reading up on lacewings for next year.

Traffic Jam

When I got to the greenhouse today, a flock of turkeys was pecking its way across the field to the south. Then three deer appeared and made their way toward the turkeys. One of the younger deer took a sniff of one of the turkeys, resulted in a very brief confrontation. That moment passed quickly and the two groups went to ignoring each other.

I spend my time worrying about whether the little heater can keep up with the overnight chill. The official coldest temperature for the city was 18 degrees the morning of the 28th. The inside temperature bottomed out at 35.8. Since the thermostat was at 45, obviously it can't keep up but it can make a difference. My conclusion based on about six nights when it got really cold is it can keep the inside about 15-18 degrees warmer than the outside. Here's how everything stands with perhaps two more weeks of heat, going clockwise starting in the northeast corner:

• The pea plants look nice but the pods are only gradually appearing.
• The sorrel has been transplanted into a pot and I'm going to bury and mulch one of the mum pots in its place. This seems the best way to overwinter the mums, and if it doesn't work I buy new mums. Sorrel is not in my long-term plans.
• The late-planted radishes are having varying degrees of success, with some looking good and some dead.
• I thinned the carrots again and got some very small ones that were almost edible. I hope we get a few good ones by mid-November.
• I'm confused by the beets. The tops are lush, but I can't see any decent-sized beets forming. I will provide more spacing for both beets and carrots next year.
• The three geraniums in hanging baskets are looking overgrown and tired. They need a good trim before they are put away for winter in my brother's tunnel greenhouse. My one potted geranium finally looks like it is recovered from last winter, which it spent in bad light in my garage getting infrequent waterings. I took cuttings from all four and so far the potted one is the winner.
• The cilantro is lush and abundant. I don't know what to do with it all.
• With the harvest of the first batch of radishes, that opened up a spot where I will bury and mulch the second mum pot.
• Hopefully the unseen allium bulbs are developing roots and will flower next year.
• I had four basil plants in the planter. When I thought I had killed one of my potted plants at home, I potted one from the greenhouse. (The original one recovered, but it is huge and needs lots of water.) The other three are looking rough and will die soon.
• The two sage plants, despite living in the shadow of the tomatillo, look healthy. I might dig them up next spring to change their location, but will keep them in a planter.
• The tomatillo. What should I say? Since the fruits are enclosed in a husk, I can't tell if any of them are ripe. I guess they are ready when they fill out the husk, which they don't seem to be doing. And its hulking presence seems to be shrinking as the weather is getting colder. There will be no tomatillo in the greenhouse next year.
• The broccoli looks extremely healthy but I don't see anything that looks like a head. Maybe they are too close together and are blocked from the light by the tomatillo.
• The petunia pot looks great. I don't want to just leave it in the greenhouse when I turn off the heat, but the only place I have to put it in the heated garage doesn't get much light. I took four cuttings, which might be doing something. I can't tell yet.
• The chives in the greenhouse look OK, not great. The two pots on the back patio at the house haven't been deadheaded all year. It's time to chop them down and stick them in the unheated shed, where they will survive just fine and come back in the spring.
• I killed the bean plants. They had run their course. I probably won't plant them again because my wife hates green beans. HATES green beans. This was a donation, and the "soil" in the big pot is hard, hard clay that I will not attempt to re-use.
• In the garage, which is now heated to 55, I have most of the potted plants in the south windows. The seed room has the cuttings from the geraniums and petunias, and sprouts of parsley, rosemary and thyme. I haven't been able to get the mint to sprout, so I planted all 12 cells of a seed starter with just mint on the 26th. The seed packet says 7-28 days. I want at least six mint plants: Three for a greenhouse window box, a couple (in pots) in a barrel planter outside, and at least one more potted. The only thing on the heated mat at the moment is the mint starter. Nov. 1: We have mint sprouts in two cells after six days.
• The house plants, which are aloe and "Greek oregano" are in the process of being evacuated to the garage, joining basil and regular oregano pots. I have space for all of them but some may not get much light. Triage. My sister gave me the "Greek oregano" maybe 25-30 years ago. It is a succulent, very aromatic, but the images of Greek oregano on the interweb have more pointed leaves, and AI says it is not a succulent. However, it might be a Cuban oregano, which is a succulent. Most of the images I have found on the internet support this idea, so henceforth I will call it Cuban oregano.

That's everything. This isn't quite the end of the greenhouse year, but it is the beginning of the end. I learned a lot in the shortened three-month growing season after the greenhouse arrived. I know what I want to do next year when the greenhouse season will be more like seven months (mid-April to mid-November). I have my garage seed room with heating mats for seed starting in March, leading up to transplanting in the (heated) greenhouse in April and May. (Our official last frost average date is June 9, with possible frost as late as June 25!)

Flowers will be more prominent -- zinnias, marigolds, nasturiums and others instead of just geraniums and the random petunia. Tomatoes and peppers will occupy the East Wing of planters, and nearby will be two hanging baskets of strawberries! Outside, on the east side I will try doing two hanging baskets of peas suceeded by cucumbers. On the west side and at our house we will have Supertunia baskets. Because of the deer, everything outside either has to be unpalatable to them, or hung high. Every web search I do for "deer resistant" says nothing is 100%. I'll probably move the two-foot oak barrel (which had the bean pot this year) outside and plant a deer-"resistant" bee balm as the centerpiece, surrounding it and also filling the greenhouse window boxes with zinnias, marigolds, mint, rosemary, thyme and bunching onions. I hope the deer hate them.

Here's a couple images of the Cuban oregano that spent a couple months in the greenhouse. About 10 years ago I stuck a cutting in the ground next to my house in South Dakota, and over the summer it developed into a thick mounded ball. Cold weather killed it immediately, and I haven't been able to replicate it since. Usually the indoor pots struggle to get enough light during the winter. With a full summer in the greenhouse next year I'll see what I can do in a large pot or even in the outside barrel next to the bee balm.

Peas

I finally saw some peapods yesterday. And I found what I believe is a volunteer marigold in the petunia pot. I replanted it and we'll see how well it does.

We had light snow today, but the temperature was still high enough for the vents to open slightly and the flakes were trickling through. Jesse showed me how to screw the vents closed for winter, but I'm not sure whether I will do it.

I received the new temperature controller for the heater today. Ultra-simple controls, and it allows setting an on/off range so it doesn't cycle on and off so frequently. It set it at 39.5 on and 44.5 off. Now as long as it isn't as cheaply made as the previous one, I'm all set.

Baskets

I got a deal on 16-inch Coco Coir (coconut fiber) baskets during Prime Days, so now I have 10 of them. Along with two 12-inch baskets and three hanging geraniums, I potentially have 15 hanging items next year. I put four high hooks in the greenhouse today, so now I have 14 hooks installed. I'm short one hook. There are two cross beams (visible in the photo), higher than the side hooks but lower than the high hooks, so those would pick up the overflow if it occurs. I probably would bump my head on them all the time, but of course the crowding would only occur in April-May. Sometime around the start of June, as many as 10 of the baskets will go outside, both at our house and at the greenhouse.

The Coco Coir baskets are empty for now.

I was looking at the two brackets that are on beams at the back of our house. To date, they have been high enough to keep deer from getting to the geraniums, marigolds and generic petunias we have had there. But if these mutant petunias are as prolific as claimed, I should raise those brackets a foot or two. (I'll also add two brackets in the front and perhaps two more in the back.) I've seen a deer getting up on its hind legs and trying to steal seeds from our bird feeders more than five feet off the ground, and I think I have a trailcam image of it. While I search for that, here's another example. Everything needs to go as high as possible.

The petunia cuttings have been moved to the seed room in the garage. The leaves have spread too much and I've given up on the humidity domes, so will just make sure they remain moist. I forgot to do that with the basil plant in the garage window. It looked very droopy, but after dumping lots of water on it, it looks better six hours later. We have a basil plant in the kitchen, and I still have four plants in a greenhouse planter. I might dig one up tomorrow for another backup, but there is only so much space in our garage.

Cuttings

Here I go with the tunias again. I've spent way too much time lately reading and watching videos about petunias. I know my current petunias are not Super, but they look healthy and I did throw a couple grains of fertilizer at them a few days ago. I decided to take some cuttings and see how far into the winter I can make it.

I wanted to use clear plastic cups for the cuttings so I could see the growing roots, if any. I found some hard plastic cups in the cupboard and decided to drill holes in the bottom. A big drill bit cracked the bottom of the first one, but it was still together enough that I used it. I used a much smaller bit on the next three. They still cracked, but not as badly. (Next time, get flexible plastic cups.)

Some interweb sources said the soil doesn't have to be anything special for petunia cuttings, so I used extra garden soil. I ran it through the soil sifter to take out the larger chucks of wood. I put those in the compost bin, which needs more brown stuff. After I filled the glasses with soil, I soaked them thoroughly. I then attacked the petunia pot, taking cuttings 4-6 inches in length just below a leaf as the YouTube videos suggest. I peeled off the lower leaves, made a hole in the dirt with a pencil, and inserted the cuttings. The first one I took was spread too wide, but I was more careful selecting the other three and I inverted a small cup on top to act as a humidity dome. I guess we will see if a humidity dome makes a difference.

The four cuttings are still in the greenhouse, but I will bring them home to the garage seed room eventually. I don't know if I will have the patience to nurse these through the winter. It's probably more of a proof of concept for next year.

My other project today was finishing the shelves above the bench. In the early part of the week I stained three 12x48 pine boards, and today I attached them to the brackets. I know the shelves are very close together, but there isn't a lot of wall space above the bench. This image shows the shelves bringing order to the space, with the four petunia cuttings front and center. Or actually a bit to the right.

Next, mums. I've been debating what to do with the two garden mums I picked up in August. Some interweb sources suggest sticking them in the cool, dark corner of an unheated garage. Our garage is heated to 50, doesn't really have a dark corner, and doesn't have a lot of excess space. Our furnace room is dark, but it is not cool. It's a furnace room! All of our stalls have a car parked in them. Mums are supposed to be hardy to Zone 5, which we are ever since global warming kicked in, and I'm thinking now I will bury the mum pots in the greenhouse planters. I can't do it now because there is only one unused spot, where the radishes used to be. Something else needs to go away so I can bury both pots. "Could you please tell the sorrel I want to see it in my office..." As mid-November approaches, the sorrel may get dug up and accidentally end up in a neglected pot. (I'm also thinking about accidentally putting the tomatillo in a wood chipper. It takes up way too much room.)

As I mentioned before, both mums have been deadheaded and I've been waiting to see if new blossoms put on a show. One of the plants has a few orange blooms scattered around the lower part near the pot rim. The other one has nothing. I presume the flowering mum was yellow in its earlier incarnation because the other one was purple. There are still some tight little buds on both plants and something might yet happen.

Drone

Outside temperatures in the mid-50s are excellent for the greenhouse. It gets up to about 80 with the windows closed and the sun shining in. The automatic top vents are open on days like this, so there is some ventilation. If I open the windows and door, it's a pleasant 70.

At this point I'm patiently (?) waiting for the beets, carrots, broccoli and peas to mature, which all look really healthy but are not ready to harvest. I wonder if I crowded things too much or if it just takes that long. The beets and carrots have been growing for two months, and the other two for about six weeks. The tomatillo has dozens of fruits, but they don't fill out the husks yet. No matter what happens this year, we will not have one of those next year. It takes up way too much room.

I didn't have the right screwdriver to finish installing the shelves I've been working on, so that will be finished tomorrow. I did put up all of my remaining small hooks, but I figure I will have to put four big hooks in the highest beams to hang all the baskets I have. Most of these baskets will end up outside during the summer, but in the spring they need to be in the greenhouse to get established. Assuming I still have three geranium baskets next year, I will have a total of 15 baskets. Ten of the other baskets are 16-inch and two are 12-inch. In addition to the geraniums inside the greenhouse, right now I'm planning for eight petunia baskets (four outside at home, two outside on the west end of the greenhouse, the two small baskets inside the greenhouse), two of strawberries (inside), and two of peas succeeded by cucumbers outside on the east end of the greenhouse. With months to go before planting starts, this is subject to change.

Speaking of video, here is one that I shot with my drone on Tuesday, along with some stills. It has been a mild autumn so far. My electronic devices tell me there still hasn't been a hard freeze, and the little heater easily has been able to keep it at 40-42 overnight. I was hoping to get my replacement thermostat today, but now Amazon says Monday.

All the windows and door are open.

Facing west, Red Lodge Mountain.

Panorama, Red Lodge to the left, airport in the middle. The greenhouse is not really visible, just below the airport.

Winter goals

As the weather has gradually gotten cooler, I've been plotting out what to do over the winter to be ready for when the Northern Hemisphere inevitably turns back toward the sun. I'm not planning on heating the greenhouse past mid-November, so for anything that can't tolerate freezing, I need to use our garage, which is heated to 50 degrees.

I already have basil, oregano and a few houseplants in the garage windows, and we have a garage closet that is now my seed starting area. I hung an LED light and have been trying to sprout rosemary, thyme, parsley and mint as houseplants. The first attempt started mid-September using small clay pots, and failed completely. I tried again with plastic pots Sept. 28 and now have little sprouts of rosemary, thyme and parsley, but no mint yet. Finally, on Oct. 16 I went all-in, using a 12-cell seed starter tray (3 cells each), official Miracle Gro seed starting potting mix, and a heating mat.

Also on Oct. 16, I took cuttings from each of the four greenhouse geraniums. There are two identical reds and two unrelated pinks. I stuck those in plastic pots and put them in the seed starting room under the light but not on the heating mat.

I deadheaded the mums about three weeks ago hoping the buds underneath would produce a new crop of flowers, but they really haven't. In a few weeks I will trim them back to see if they will go dormant and overwinter in the greenhouse.

We have three pots of chives, and the smaller one might end up in the garage window. The larger two will get trimmed back and stuck in a dim part of the greenhouse. Previous winters they spent in our unheated shed and have always bounced back in the spring.

The seed starting closet in our garage. Clockwise from top, geranium cuttings, rosemary, mint (not yet), the seed starter tray, thyme, parsley.

I have four more 12-cell starter trays and another heating mat. When spring arrives, I will try to start broccoli, pepper, tomato, zinnia and sunflower seeds. As May rolls around I might devote some of the baskets to cucumbers. I am undecided on whether to sprout marigolds and nasturtiums with seed trays, or just direct seed. I'll probably do some of both.

I will direct seed green onions, beets, carrots, peas, radishes and cilantro when the time comes. I'm not sure when to turn the greenhouse heat back on, maybe April 15 give or take a few weeks. There is a plan, and we will see how it comes together.

Speaking of peas, I really need to start writing down when I plant stuff. I planted peas in September, what date I'm not sure. They all sprouted nicely and maybe 10 days ago started producing flowers. No pods yet, but there is still plenty of time. The peas are in the northeast corner, and the other photo is shot through the window facing west. For the chaotic way the greenhouse layout evolved after getting a very, very late start on planting, I'm happy with it.

Except for this one bloom, the mums have not bounced back after deadheading three weeks ago.

Oct. 23: I thought I labeled the seed starter tray. I did not. Two of the four rows have sprouts after one week on the warming pad. I'm guessing they are thyme and rosemary, but will have to wait until they get bigger. If this guess is correct, I'm not getting any mint to sprout. I want some to plant outside next year because I think the deer will not eat it, so I would really like to get this to work.

Three of the geranium cuttings look like crap with yellowing leaves, and one looks pretty good. I did label those, so I know the good cutting is from the one that I overwintered in a pot in my garage last year. The bad ones are from the donated hanging baskets. I might just do more cuttings from the good plant. My petunias look so good that I'm thinking of doing cuttings from them also.

Nov. 4: One of the red geranium cuttings didn't make it. As I was giving the basket geraniums their season-ending haircut, I saved two more red cuttings and found little pots for them. I don't know if I will have room for all this stuff when I start trying to sprout seeds in March-April.

Panic time

The sun can raise the temperature of a greenhouse well above the outdoor temperature, but after the sun goes down, the inside and outside temperatures converge. This time of year when the lows are a few degrees either side of freezing, that is a problem unless you take countermeasures. There are all sorts of things you can try that don't require electricity, and if you are interested do a Google search on "greenhouse heating methods." But I opted for the electricity. We haven't had a hard freeze in southern Montana yet (unusual), and the little heater I bought for the greenhouse has been able to keep up with the 30-something outdoor temperatures, maintaining 41-42 degrees inside. (Fahrenheit of course.)

A side benefit of the AC Infinity fan I have installed is it has an app that (in addition to controlling the fan) allows me to monitor the temperature and humidity remotely. I have gotten in the habit of checking the app frequently, particularly as the weather has gotten cooler. This morning at 4:25 AM, it showed the temperature plunging from 41 degrees to 37 degrees a few minutes later. It didn't go back up, which I took as a sure sign that the heating system had chosen that moment to fail. It bottomed out at 35.8 degrees at 6:01 AM. It was a clear day so the temperature started rising in the greenhouse after the sun rose at 7:35 AM. Most (but not all) of my current plants are cold tolerant. Fortunately, there was no apparent damage even to those that are less hardy.

I quickly determined that the heater itself was still operational, but the separate thermostat controller had failed. The display still worked and I was able to cycle through the options, but it simply would not turn on the heater. So I removed the controller and plugged the heater directly into the outlet. Temperature control via the analog dial is complete guesswork, and I have it set on 1.5. I will monitor the temperature tonight with the AC Infinity app and might have to take a midnight ride if it turns out that it is set too low. I have ordered a new controller, different brand of course, but it won't be here until next Thursday.

This is a picture of the Chinese-made Buyplus heater, controller (the green item), and a stand-alone digital thermometer that came in the package. I ordered them about two months ago and the Amazon return window ended after a month. So far I have been happy with the heater itself, and the digital thermometer is handy in that it gives me the 24-hour high and low, but the controller failure makes it impossible to recommend this package.

Update Oct. 18: The analog setting of 1.5 kept the temperature from dipping below 37.2 degrees last night when the outside temperature reached 32. I bumped it to just over 2.0 and will see if that will maintain above 40 degrees until I get the new controller. Also, I put the stand-alone thermometer outside on the north side of the greenhouse. AC Infinity already tells me the high and low temperatures inside, so this will report what is happening outside.

Update Oct. 20: The new setting has kept the temperature no lower than 41.7 the past two nights. I'm wondering if I should leave this heater as-is, and hook the new controller when it comes to a second heater set a few degrees lower as an emergency backup. Less than three months into my greenhouse experience I've already had technology failures of the ventilation fan and the heater controller. A backup heater seems like a good idea.

Why We Fight

As I mentioned in my first post, one of the reasons to get a greenhouse rather than garden outside is the deer in this area eat everything. At the Spruce Lodge location, there were six regulars this year, three adults and three fawns. As I was pruning geraniums there today, three of them were lounging around and not the least bit concerned by my presence. I could see the message in their eyes, "I dare you to leave that door open." The first image is from today (the middle one is a fawn), the next two images are from August when the fawns still had their spots.

Greenhouse gadgets

I love my gadgets. I was probably the first one on my block to have a flatbed scanner connected to my computer, circa 1991. The greenhouse is no different. I have added a heater, a temperature control for the heater, a device to measure how much electricity the heater is using, the irrigation system, three extension cords, a set of three soil sifters, hooks, a 7-in-1 soil tester, a garden hose mount, 25 four-foot stakes, clamps to attach the stakes to the planters, shelves, a compost bin, a seedling heating mat, tomato cages, plant labels, seed starter trays, and 10 hanging baskets. And that's just from Amazon. I haven't gotten quite as much stuff at WalMart and Home Depot, but I have been a frequent visitor.

October 8

Today, a gloomy day

A flock of 10 turkeys wanders by